Word.ws English Dictionary

bunyip

/ˈbʌnjɪp/

bunyip noun: a mythical Australian monster, said to inhabit swamps and lagoons. Also the ellipsis of bunyip bird.

bunyip: a mythical Australian monster, said to inhabit swamps and lagoons
Image: Macfarlane, J, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

bunyip (plural bunyips)

  1. (Australia) A mythical Australian monster, said to inhabit swamps and lagoons.
    • The bunyip here was considered to have a magical power over humans, causing them considerable misfortune. Places where there were many eels tended to be where bunyips lived, as this was their food. On one occasion, Aboriginal people claimed that a bunyip lured a woman to her death by distracting...2007, Janet Parker, Julie Stanton, editors, Mythology: Myths, Legends and Fantasies, page 387
    • According to the stories, the Bunyip comes in many different shapes and sizes—some are covered in feathers, while others have scales like a crocodile. Most Aboriginal drawings show the Bunyip with a tail like a horse, and flippers and tusks like a walrus.2008, Oliver Ho, Mysteries Unwrapped: Mutants & Monsters, page 26
  2. (Australia, obsolete, slang) An imposter or con-man.

Proper noun capitalized: Bunyip

Bunyip

  1. A town in the Shire of Cardinia, central eastern Victoria, Australia

Also used as

bunyip is also the ellipsis of bunyip bird.

Examples of bunyip in a sentence

  • The bunyip here was considered to have a magical power over humans, causing them considerable misfortune.2007, Janet Parker, Julie Stanton, editors, Mythology: Myths, Legends and Fantasies, page 387:
  • One particularly fierce bunyip described by Smith was well known as a man-eater throughout south Australia.2009, David D. Gilmore, Monsters: Evil Beings, Mythical Beasts, and All Manner of Imaginary Terrors, page 150:

Forms of bunyip

pluralbunyips

Origin of bunyip

Borrowed from Wathaurong ban-yib.

Words formed from bunyip

Phrases with bunyip

Questions about bunyip

What does bunyip mean?
Bunyip means a mythical Australian monster, said to inhabit swamps and lagoons.
How do you use bunyip in a sentence?
The bunyip here was considered to have a magical power over humans, causing them considerable misfortune.
What part of speech is bunyip?
Bunyip can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce bunyip?
Bunyip is pronounced /ˈbʌnjɪp/.
What is the plural of bunyip?
The plural of bunyip is bunyips.

Words near bunyip in the dictionary

  1. Bunyards
  2. bunyas
  3. bunyaviral
  4. bunyavirus
  5. bunyaviruses
  6. bunyip
  7. bunyip aristocracy
  8. bunyip bird
  9. bunyip birds
  10. Bunyip North
  11. bunyips

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bunyip (page history and authors); Bunyip (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-bunyip.ogg.

Cite this entry: “bunyip.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bunyip. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.